


Odds Are

by HematiteBadger



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Season 3, canon-typical Martin pining, office gossip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 12:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16913259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HematiteBadger/pseuds/HematiteBadger
Summary: Basira discovers another little secret that Tim has been keeping for a while now.





	Odds Are

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Amber for giving this a once-over!

The 'aggressively doing nothing' plan was working out well, or at least it seemed to be. Tim had mostly gotten the others to leave him alone by now, at least on work matters. There were still frequent questions about his welfare and if there was anything that could be done to help from the usual suspects (mostly Martin, who it seemed was _impossible_ to put off by any means short of physical violence, but occasionally Basira as well), and occasional invitations to join the rest of them for drinks after work, but those were getting more infrequent over time as it became more and more apparent how uninterested he was in either taking them up on the offers or offering genuine answers to their concerns. He arrived late, took long lunches, and left early -- the nausea and headaches could only do so much to harry him along, and they always subsided as soon as he returned to the Institute anyway -- and in between he idled on his phone or fiddled with whatever other distraction he could lay his hands on. Anything aggressively solitary and mindless, anything idle and incurious. He even avoided news websites, doing everything he could to rob the all-seeing bastardry that had him under its thumb from learning anything through him. It was the kind of job that he might have dreamed of when he was younger: no responsibilities -- or at least none that anyone could actually enforce -- and no possibility of being fired. A gift, really. He should try to appreciate it.

Which was what he'd been doing when Basira leaned around the corner into the reading room. "There you are," she said, sounding as unruffled as ever, but there was something probing in her voice. A note of concern that she was keeping under wraps until she could see how he'd react to it. "Got a minute?"

"Depends," he returned coolly. He'd been slouched in one of the less uncomfortable chairs with his feet up on the table, but he sat up a little straighter as he eyed her. He'd heard that tone from the others far too often to trust it now. "What are you after this time?"

She didn't seem put off by his viciousness, but then she never was. "Just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

And he'd heard _that_ one as well. "Is this an intervention, Basira?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "It wasn't intended to be one," she said. "I just found something that raised some questions, is all. Thought you might want to explain some things." She held up an envelope. "This was at the top of your desk drawer."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I suppose we'll leave aside for the moment the question of why you were in my desk drawer," he said. And who else had been; it wasn't as if he'd been using it lately. Any new note there was far more likely to be _for_ him than _from_ him, and he couldn't imagine anyone actually taking the time to leave him little secret letters.

Another shrug, unapologetic as she came closer so he could see what she was holding. "You hoard the good scissors," she said. "You've never minded lending them out before; figured I'd save myself the trouble of finding you and asking." Another tap at the envelope, drawing his attention back to it. "And this was sitting on top of them like it just got put there." She turned it over and read the writing on the front, which Tim could recognize from here was in his own handwriting. "'What's it going to take?' Sounded a little too apocalyptic to ignore. Not that there's anything these days that doesn't, but..." She shook her head. "You know what I mean. We all know you've been making your own plans lately, but if you're going to be leaving clues..."

Understanding dawned as he recognized the words. "Oh, _that_ ," he said mildly, sitting up properly now and holding his hand out to her. She took this as an invitation to sit down in the chair across from him as she handed over the envelope. "No, this is nothing you... well, it's not a cause for concern." He turned it over in his hands and shook his head. "I'd practically forgotten about this," he said. "It's been taped up to the top of that drawer for ages; the tape must have finally given way. I'm assuming you didn't open it."

"I may be curious, but I'm not _that_ invasive," Basira said. Not defensive, just pointing it out. She leaned forward a bit, that calm curiosity obvious in her face. "I'll take you at your word that it's nothing I need to be concerned about," she said. "But should I at least know about it?"

Tim thought for a moment, his mind briefly occupied by thoughts of a simpler time, and then shrugged. There was no reason not to tell her, really; presumably she could keep a secret, and it wasn't as if this would be the worst thing that would ever get out about him if she couldn't. And besides, it might even be vaguely entertaining to see her reaction. "There was a bit of a betting pool going on for a while, long before you arrived. 'What's it going to take?'" He opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper, the smudged writing on it looking worse for the wear but still readable. As he unfolded it he found himself slipping into his old, cool confidence, the cheerful voice that had originally announced the entire idea. "What's it going to take for the obvious to finally triumph over the oblivious?" he continued. It wasn't written on the page; that had seemed too overt, too cruel if they should be found out, but he remembered the words he'd used back then nonetheless. "What's it going to take for Jon to finally pick up on the fact that Martin is woefully smitten with him?"

Basira's eyes widened. "You're serious," she said. "There was a betting pool?"

"Oh yes," Tim said, rolling his eyes. "We figured that if we had to put up with watching the two of them while it all played out, we might as well get some entertainment out of the deal."

"And you didn't think that was too invasive?" she continued. "I mean, it's not like it's anyone's business but theirs whether they get together..."

Tim blinked at her for a moment, and then let out a faint snicker. "Oh, trust me; none of us gave a damn whether or not they 'got together,'" he assured her. "I think we all knew that was never going to happen. All that we were concerned about was if Jon was ever going to just plain _notice_."

Basira echoed his wry sound as she looked up at the ceiling, shaking her head thoughtfully. "That does sound about right for him," she conceded, and that seemed to be it for whatever objections she might have had against the whole idea. She leaned forward, craning her neck to try and see around to his side of the paper. "Well, if you're going to talk it up you might as well share with the rest of the class."

Tim obliged, laying the paper flat on the table and angling his chair around so they could both read it. She studied it with a sort of horrified fascination. "I don't recognize half of these names," she said.

"Oh, a good number of them left before your arrival," Tim said. "Students who finished their work, people who got married or moved or just moved on. Some of them are still in the research department, though, not that you're likely to have run into them." There were names he himself barely recognized by now, people he'd known in what now felt like another life. "That's where all of us were when this started."

"Really," Basira said. "That long." She didn't actually sound surprised, but it was like she still didn't want to believe it.

"As near as I can tell, it was doomed adoration at first sight," Tim said, rolling his eyes at the memory. "Jon was always an idiot about dealing with other people; that didn't come along with the 'gradually becoming less human,' or whatever it is that's happening to him now." He sighed faintly. "And Martin has always been... well, _Martin_."

Basira pursed her lips faintly. "He means well," she said, a halfhearted protest if ever Tim had heard one before. He was about to comment on it, to reject the implied scolding there, but she sighed and shook her head. "It's always worse when they mean well, isn't it?"

Tim laughed mirthlessly. "He always _means well_ . For all the good it does anyone." He was probably being unfair to Martin, whom he had vague memories of having liked before everything fell apart in the way it had. Yes, he'd always been one of those people who was just a bit sad and pathetic, but he did his job well enough and he was sort of generally nice. Once upon a time that had been all that was necessary for someone to be a decent coworker, a sort of work friend. And, if Tim was being completely honest with himself, someone he had -- very briefly -- considered asking out at one point. But that had been before the stakes were raised, back when the worst that was likely to come from his awkwardness was social discomfort, which Tim had never had a problem with shrugging off. Back before someone being hopeless and helpless was an actual liability instead of a minor frustration. Back when the idea of teasing him behind his back was just a bit of harmless fun based on a bit of harmless annoyance. He shook his head. "Anyway, it was just a way of blowing off a bit of steam. Making light of something that was just pervasive enough to be irritating without actually being a problem. Back when something that was just _irritating_ was the worst thing we had to deal with."

"It sounds lovely," Basira said dryly. She ran a finger down the list, half-smiling to herself at some of the entries. "'Drunken office Christmas party confession'?"

"Yes, that was the front-runner for a good while," Tim said, finding himself unexpectedly drawn into the conversation. It was a bit cruel, and he'd never pretended otherwise, but the memory of the little vent sessions that had led to the betting pool, all the frustrated laughter and absurd bonding that had come out of them, was a welcome distraction from the present. A recollection of more normal days. He tapped the paper absentmindedly, vaguely recalling the face connected to the name next to that entry. "Martin always did get a little sadder around the holidays. Very forced-cheer, you know? Like, he's always got that 'way too eager to help' thing going, but it was worse in December. Honestly, I think he was more lonely than anything; he never seemed to have a lot of friends outside the Institute, even before we all turned into shut-ins, and I don't think there's a lot there in the way of family, either." He'd mentioned his mother a few times, hadn't he? Funny, for all Tim would have assumed that someone like Martin would be an oversharer, there seemed to be a surprising amount that Tim couldn't actually guess at about him. He waved that thought away as getting in the way of the roll he was on. "And we figured that if he was going to crack directly, that was going to be the time."

"Very cinematic," Basira agreed. "Very likely." She didn't add _and likely to go horribly wrong_ , but there was something in her face that suggested to Tim that they were both thinking it. She continued to skim the list. "They're all about Martin actually saying or doing something, aren't they?" she observed. "Nobody seems to be thinking that Jon might just figure it out on his own."

"Does that strike you as odd?"

"Not at all." A sideways smirk. "I was just thinking that your coworkers certainly had the right of it, at least as far as that was concerned." She waited to see the ghost of a conspiratorial smile cross his face before she continued down the list. "'Jon finds some of Martin's poetry.' There's _poetry_? Really?"

"Oh, yes," Tim said, with the long-suffering sigh of a man who had read --and heard -- far too much. "If any of it's specifically about Jon then he's hiding those better than the rest of them, but there is most definitely poetry."

A speculative look, burning with curiosity and threatening to break into a grin. "How is it?"

Tim hesitated. There was petty cruelty behind the back of a still-basically-harmless colleague, and then there was dragging out something personal that he probably shouldn't even have known about in the first place. "It means well," he finally managed.

That got a chuckle out of her, and a sympathetic shake of her head before she returned to the list. "'Jon gets a job offer elsewhere and Martin tries to convince him to stay.'" A raised eyebrow. "That one's a bit ironic now, isn't it?"

Tim's only response to that was a quiet grunt. He'd been watching her finger trace down the paper, and he remembered all too clearly who'd been the one to place their bet on that scenario. Sasha's handwriting stared accusingly up at him, all soft loops and little swirls. He ran a solemn finger over it before drawing his hand back. The not-Sasha had never written anything that he'd seen, had it? He wondered if its handwriting would have been different. Harsher, more likely. Sharp, spiky angles, scratching into the paper, tearing into it the way they'd never noticed the thing tearing into their lives. He pulled away from the conversation as well, whatever entertainment he might have been deriving out of it abruptly gone.

Basira eyed him, recognizing his new tension but not entirely understanding its source until she saw where his hand had been. "Right," she said quietly. "Sorry. Didn't mean to open old wounds."

"It's fine," Tim told her wearily, waving a dismissive hand. He bared his teeth in some approximation of a smile. "As I said. A good number of the people on that list left long before your arrival."

When he didn't actually walk away -- or snatch the list away from her, which she looked like she was half expecting -- Basira's apologetic look eventually turned back to the paper. She gave him a sideways look as he settled. "So did anyone ever actually win?" she asked.

It was enough to give him a nasty little snicker. "What do you think?"

She conceded with her own grim little laugh. "When I first got here and started really seeing how things are between them, I was sure that Jon had to know. That he was just, you know, pretending not to because he thought it would be less awkward that way. Like he was trying to be kind and didn't know how."

A snort. "A misunderstanding on several levels."

Basira let out another half laugh. "I think I was trying to make up for suspecting him of murder, even if I didn't suspect him for very long. Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt about something, not that I imagine he'd appreciate it if he knew." Another look at the list, and then back at him with an expression he couldn't read. "'At least one of them will die before he ever figures it out,'" she read.

He folded his arms again and returned the look with one that was aggressively unruffled. "I was exaggerating at the time," he said calmly. "And look at that, now I'm the front-runner."

That seemed to put a button on whatever cheer this conversation had had. Basira gave him a steady look, and folded the paper neatly before handing it back to him. "I suppose that wishing you good luck would be in poor taste," she said. A little shrug, and he could see her beginning to extricate herself from the conversation, rising from the table. "Well, all I was really here to find out was whether you were planning anything drastic the rest of us needed to worry about," she said. "Which I think it's safe to say isn't the concern here."

Tim rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not planning on killing either of them," he said dryly. "Not to win a bet, at least." She gave him a thin-lipped look that wasn't quite an ironic smile at that, and he hesitated before she left. Some vague pang of guilt was stirring. "Listen," he said, catching her attention with a slightly more earnest tone than he'd had previously. "I don't think I need to say it, but, no need for this to get back to either of them, right? None of us needs to deal with the fallout from that right now."

"Yeah, no intention of talking out of class," Basira assured him with an unconcerned shrug. "Lord knows Martin could use a reality check, but that would be a little cruel, even to him. And Jon..." The thin smile again, though a little wider this time. "Well, that would invalidate the entire pool, wouldn't it?"

She almost drew a smile out of him with that one. Almost. "Suppose it would," he agreed.

"I'd hate to ruin the game just as I started playing," she added.

Tim blinked. "Sorry, what?"

Again Basira gave that unruffled shrug. "It's like you said, we all still have to deal with all of this. And not just those two anymore, but the rest of the whole situation here. Might as well get some entertainment out of it where we can." When Tim still looked wary and dubious, she gave him a dry look. "It's not the weirdest office pool I've ever participated in," she observed. "And probably not the most petty thing I've ever done to stay sane in an office that was trying to drive me mad." She nodded at the paper. "Put me down for 'overly emotional reunion after Jon gets kidnapped yet again,'" she said.

"You certainly seem to have the spirit of the game down," Tim said. He looked at the folded paper in his hands, not sure if he wanted to preserve this artifact of people and a life that were gone forever or burn it. "Might be better to start a fresh list, though," he suggested.

"Fair enough," Basira agreed with that. "You mind if I let the others in on it? I don't know about Melanie; she's probably too single-minded at the moment to enjoy it, but Daisy's probably going to want to put a word or two in."

"Daisy? Really?"

"You'd be surprised." She waited for a patient moment, and then when Tim didn't make any further response she tilted her head. "So? Are we in?"

He hadn't realized she was waiting for an actual answer, and it took him a moment to give one. "Why the hell not," he finally said. "What else are we going to do with our lives, really?" He sank back into his own chair with a wave of his hand. "Go on and make a list; you can put me on it if you like."

Basira nodded, and then gave him a thoughtful look. Not quite concerned, exactly, but similar to the one she'd been wearing when she'd first come into the room. "If you want to change your bet, you can."

He snorted. "No chance of that," he said grimly. "Not when I'm so close to winning."

 

*

 

It was not a particularly important conversation, not compared to others that were going on elsewhere, and normally Elias wouldn't waste his time on something so trivial. But it was always worth checking in on his subordinates every once in a while in the day-to-day, just to make sure everyone was still on the same page and moving forward, and to smooth over any little interpersonal troubles that might threaten the stability of the workforce. Or to roil the waters when it looked like the stability of the workforce was making too many concerted steps in the wrong direction. And it was, on occasion, entertaining to watch them fumbling about in the dark. Digging for petty secrets and making pointless predictions about irrelevancies. The Jon and Martin betting pool was admirable in its own way, just another extension of that desire to _see_ and _know_ that was perhaps the only thing that bound all of them together, but what a foolish use of that precious curiosity!

Still, it was also always good practice to allow one's underlings to blow off a little steam, as Tim had put it, and this was a harmless and occasionally amusing enough method, and Elias was willing to let it slide as long as there could be a polite fiction maintained that he didn't know about it. He would have had to make a token effort to put a stop to it long ago if he thought his awareness of it was public knowledge -- it wasn't good managerial practice to let that sort of thing fester between employees -- but as long as they conveniently forgot that he was likely to be aware of it, or as long as they didn't care enough to think about it, their little endeavor could be allowed to continue. And besides, as Basira had said, there was no point in disrupting the game they were all playing together.

Elias cast a brief look at the shelves lining the back wall of his office, and the envelope that was concealed there much more subtly than Tim had hidden his. His list contained only a single entry, written in his careful and precise handwriting and marked with the date he'd written it, the date when Jon's career trajectory had become undeniably obvious. _Jon inadvertently compels a romantic confession out of Martin._

As Tim had said, there was no point in spoiling the game now. Not when he was so close to winning.


End file.
